UAD Manley Massive Passive EQ

[Plec]

It seems to be doing rather well in a blind shoot-out on GS: http://www.gearslutz.com/board/gear...passive-vs-massive-passive-9.html#post5215182

Plec, what you say makes sense and that's fair enough. My main thing is that the $1,999 (what UAD2 Quad costs here) is enough for me to buy a rather hefty second PC rig and network it up to my main system to share native CPU resources, thus getting a massive amount of processing headroom. It's just always ultimate bang for buck, and I find these cards hard to justify, no matter how great their plug-ins are getting (especially with how amazing Nebula has proven to be).

Best of luck to you guys with these plug-ins though. They seem to really bring the goods, sonically.

I totally understand that bro. I saw it's close to $2400 here now actually and that's really pricey. But lets be fair... you don't need UAD plugins to make a great record. Also, even though they've improved on it... every instance of UAD plugins does tax your native CPU a little bit. I think if you load a Quad full at 1024 buffer size I remember the native load being 15-20% on a 2.4Ghz DualCore, which is a great deal.

And the price of really getting into the platform is even more expensive. You buy a Quad and you only get some pretty basic plugins. I think it's like $5000 or something if you were to buy every single plugin after that, and it's pretty damn addictive once you get into using them.

The best deal is the QUAD OMNI package which is a UAD-2 Quad the most powerful version and all plugins. And I think it's $5000 for that whole package, which if you were to really get into the platform would be the best deal to get.

I've been a user for 7 years or something now and bought every new plugin as soon as it came out, so spreading the cost out over such a long period doesn't really hurt that much.

 

[Kazrog]

Checked out the shootouts and various clips. Very impressed, having had the occasion to play around with an actual hardware unit a couple of times in the past, I honestly had a hard time picking out the real unit in the blind test on GearSlutz. It sounded more like two different hardware units than hardware vs. a plugin.

UA did an amazing job with this plugin. If anyone is wondering why their home masters don't sound as "big" as those from a pro mastering lab, a big part of that sound is the Massive Passive. Of course, an immaculately treated mastering studio, lots of other amazing outboard gear, and great ears are some of the other big factors, but so much of the sonic excitement in what we hear on modern professional masters is the MP.

 

[xFkx]

Damn, I was going to stick with the 2xUAD-1's, but i guess i'll pick up a UAD-2 Solo sooner or later for this plug only.

 

[gabriel g.]

UAD plugins sound great!!!
But I´m all about waves because of "native thing"

UAD users have to buy hardware cards, waves users have to pay WUP (if they want the newest drivers and some freebies)

IMO no company is perfect.

 

[Erlend_]

Yeah the UAD plugs has some drawbacks:

You need hardware to run them.
They are pricey (especially the newer ones).


But these are the good sides:

You get the best plugs in the world.
Diverse selection of plugs to choose from.
You get plugs not "everybody" has.
Every month there is a new promo for you (25-50$ coupons, 25% off plugs etc...)
Very good customer support (usually).


For me, its a no-brainer.